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Progressive Organizing

While it is true that there have been different visions within the IWW about what it should be and how it should organize, there has also been from the time of the founding of the IWW, an idea that I will call progressive organizing. Rather than try to create all of our structure at the same time and spend most of our time trying to make that function. Or believing that at any given time our structure has become finalized and that is what we must live with. Progressive organizing creates a process in which the IWW can continuesly grow into. Though some wish to continue to reinvent the wheel, that I believe is not necessary because progessive organizing is based upon the core value we need and that is the working class experience. 

The following, based upon our structure and experience, is how progressive organizing could look like. 

Either within a shop or from the outside an organizing committee is set up. Once there is enough IWW organizing in that shop a Job Branch is organized. When the shop becomes a union shop with more than 50% of the workers in the union, it can be issued a Shop Card. The Job Branch seeks to organize all workers in the same shop.

The Job Branch is not an autonomous organization, but rather a branch of a charted Industrial Union Branch (IUB), or if there is not a local IUB organized then it is a branch of the local General Membership Branch (GMB).

GMBs are organized in local areas and are made up of all IWW members that are not organized into IUBs. The purpose of GMBs is to help in the organizing of IUBs. The GMBs are a branch of a General Administration.

The General Administrations would service the needs of the members in a region. As a means to organize the IWW in a region Regional Organization Committees (ROCs) are formed. At which time the ROC is functioning to the point that it can take over administration duties for a region then a regional General Administration is formed. All the regional Administrations would be connected together by an International General Administration. 

IUBs are serviced by a General Administration until there are enough of them in any industry so that functioning Industrial Unions can be formed. Each Industrial Union would have its own Industrial Union Administration and would be connected to the rest of the IWW by means of a General Administration, both regional and international. Industrial Unions would seek to organize all workers in the same industry. At which time there is Industrial Union organization in different regions those different regions could organize Industrial Union Regional Organizing Committees to build the Industrial Union organization in a region until it is ready for a regional Industrial Union Administration. All the regional Industrial Union Administrations would form an International Industrial Union Administration

Once there are more than one branch of any kind in a local area the branches are connected together by means of a local Industrial District Council

When related industries have organized their Industrial Unions, they would then organize Industrial Departments. With both regional and an international Industrial Department Administrations. 

Each component part of the IWW organization would deal with the needs of their part and those needs that extend beyond their part would be dealt with by the next form of organization. For example solidarity is a very important part of our class struggle and each compont part would organize solidarity within its part all the way out to all parts being the One Big Union. No part of the IWW is autonomous, but rather all parts are directly connected to the organization and make up the One Big Union. 

The IWW is not an example of great idealism and that is because there is nothing ideal about the class struggle. The fact is we are faced with a well organized and powewrful capitalist class and in order to face that organization and power we need to be better organized. In fact the working class does have greater power than does the capitalist class, we have the power of production and services, but our power needs to be organized so that when the organized power of the working class is greater than the organized power of the capitalist class we will be able to take control of the tools of production and services, that already is in our hands, and rehold our labor from capitalism and thus produce for the benefit of all rather than for the profit of a few. 

Through progressive organizing we can organize the power of the working class horizontally where there is no center that can be repressed and if a part does get repress we still have the rest of the organization to resist that repression and reorganize the part that was repressed. Thus as long as there are any Wobblies left we can always reorganize.

With progressive organizing working class education is very important because workers need to understand that we are not just organizing for day-to-day gains, but are also organizing to put an end to the class system and gain control over our labor. So we should not just be organizing barganing units, we should also be creating Wobblies. 

Progressive organizing would not end with the end of capitalism. To that point our organization would have been organized as a greater power than the capitalist class. After that our organization would have the fundamental purpose of dealing with the needs of the people and the earth. Though we will have the shell of the new society we will have to continue to organize for our new purpose.